[sadhappy]

After over a year on carbamazepine (tegretol), I'm trying to change my meds. My manic phases are all but gone, but these were usually quite mild. However, I found that my depressive phases, although a little less intense, have been substantially longer in duration than with no meds at all, which was making life pretty miserable. Did anyone else experience this with carbamazepine?

Together with my psychiatrist, we reduced the dosage back in January, and this helped a lot (even though I'm experiencing mild periods of mania now, although nothing excessive). I admit, I stopped taking it entirely a few of weeks ago. Today, we agreed on switch the carbamazepine entirely for depakote. I was wondering if anyone else has swapped from carbamazepine to depakote and would you recommend it? I'm a little worried there seem to be more side effects (weight gain, hair loss)

[BeyondtheRainbow]

Depakote worked well for me although keeping it working was a hard job. I processed it really quickly and so it was very hard to keep me at a therapeutic level. We were constantly increasing doses. That is not typical at all. I actually got to the point that I could predict what my lab values were going to be pretty accurately which my dr was fascinated by. Eventually we learned I needed my levels to be 125-130 instead of about 100 which is typical. That caused more dose increases. I was on it a long time. I did not gain weight on iniitally (8 lbs in 6 months) although later I did on higher doses. I did have trouble with hair falling out but taking centrum silver, selenium and biotin helped that. I also used a special shampoo I got at the salon for a while because when my thyroid gave up from lithium the combination caused enough hair loss to be noticeable. That shampoo helped greatly and I don't think the depakote alone would have ever caused nearly as much as the hypothyroid/depakote/very sick from a 6 month battle with lithium toxicity battle did.

So it worked for me although it took work on my part and my dr's part. I wasn't sad to get rid of it but while I needed it was very valuable.